Under the Watchful Eye of Death
by PhyllisGeorgeDoloresJody
Summary: AU, In which Castiel is Death, and he saves Dean from drowning. When Castiel's boss gets wind of this, Cas must do everything in his power to protect the human he's worked so hard to look after. Terrible summary. Eventual Destiel. T for language, thematic content, violence, and some sexuality.


The first time Dean Winchester stared Death in the face was a cold night in December, only a month or so short of his eighteenth birthday. With his parents and younger brother Sammy at a holiday party, Dean found himself stricken with a deafening sense of boredom. He sighed deeply as he sat on the couch, staring blankly at a Christmas movie on TV that he had absolutely no interest in. He sat up. It was snowing lightly outside, typical for a December in Lawrence, Kansas. Dean figured he might as well go out for a while, and he threw on an old leather jacket and laced up his boots. He grabbed a beer from the back of the fridge before heading out into the cold.

After he had nearly downed the can of beer, Dean found himself deep in the woods on the edge of his neighborhood. He continued to walk until he came to a small lake, a thin layer of ice spread neatly over the top. He stopped for a moment on the edge of the ice, pondering whether to cross it. He shrugged after a moment, throwing caution to the wind. He remembered something his father had always said to him when he was faced with a difficult decision. "No one ever got anywhere by taking the easy way out, Dean."

Dean placed a foot on the ice. There was no crack or sign of stress on the surface, so he moved out and shuffled forward until something caught his eye. He was in the middle of the lake, when he caught a glimpse of something in the forest ahead of him; something pale flashed between the trees before disappearing all together. Dean squinted and leaned forward to get a better look. He hadn't realized he had stopped in the center of the lake, and he only returned to reality when he heard a sharp crack.

Dean's eyes widened in horror, and he looked down to see several large fissures jaggedly sprouting from under his feet. He burst into a sprint, but as he pushed off the ice with his boot, the thin sheet collapsed, dragging Dean down with it. He saw a blur of darkness, the forest as it disappeared from his view, before squeezing his eyes shut when his head became submerged. He could immediately feel the cold overtaking him as he struggled to keep his head above water. His hands and feet were already numb beyond repair, and his heavy boots were only helping the water drag him down and swallow him whole.

He reached his arms up as far as he could manage, trying to grip the top of the ice. He anxiously grabbed at the slick ice, his fingernails digging into the frozen sheet, only providing the cold with more leverage. He inhaled an icy gulp of water, and it stung his throat and filled his lungs. His chest tightened, as if he was being strangled by an anaconda, and he began to think it was going to cave in on his barely beating heart. His vision spotted, and all he could think of was his family. He couldn't do this to them. He couldn't do this to Sam.

In one last effort to save himself, and his family, he threw his frozen arms above him and forced them to collide with the ice in front of him. Though he couldn't feel anything his hands or his fingers, he dug them as hard as he could into the ice. He managed to pull his head above the water, but his arms were rapidly losing their grip. He spluttered and gasped for air. He tried to scream for help, but his vocal chords felt like they were frozen solid. "He… help m-" Was all he could manage to get out.

In between the black spots clouding his vision, Dean saw the figure of a man in a tan trench coat standing before him, looking straight at him from the edge of the lake. His arms were giving way, and he was just seconds from sinking back into the icy abyss. The man was suddenly right in front of him, peering down at him, his head turned on what looked like a painful angle. Dean raised one arm a few inches, but the man did not try to help him. Dean tried to cry for help, but his voice betrayed him. He lost his grip on the ice and slid back into the water. It contorted around him and strangled every part of him.

He sank deeper and deeper, getting closer to death as he did so. He closed his eyes, admitting defeat. He was drained of all his strength, and he knew this was the end. As he felt the life leave his body, one word was painfully engrained in his mind.

_Sam._

Dean gasped for air loudly, feeling like his lungs could never get enough of it. He opened his eyes and coughed torrentially. He was lying in the snow beside the lake, but more importantly, he was _alive. _He tried to sit up, but the effort was futile. "You shouldn't try to get up yet." A gravelly voice warned him. Dean was too exhausted to argue, so he did as he was told. "Wha… what hape…" he managed to ask. His voice so hoarse and airy that he didn't recognize it at first. The man in the trench coat, the one that watched Dean practically drown, was at his side, kneeling down and staring at him.

"You were standing in the middle of the lake, for whatever reason, and you fell through the ice. You didn't make it, Dean." Dean blinked once, extremely bewildered. Then he remembered why he had stopped in the middle of the lake; he had seen something in the woods. Now that he thought about it, it looked like the flash of a tan trench coat.

"Y-you, I st-topped b-because of y-you." Dean was regaining his voice, but still suffered from a terrible shiver. The man in the coat cocked his head to that impossible angle once more. Dean finally got a good look at the man, and he was surprised with what he saw. He had a mop of untidy dark hair, sticking out in all directions, and eyes that were an almost impossible shade of blue. His skin was pale, and Dean couldn't call his facial expression anything short of grave. "What w-were you doing in-n the woods? And what d-do you m-mean 'I d-didn't make it?'" Dean was flabbergasted. This strange man had caused Dean to fall through the ice, and he didn't even try to save him. What was he even doing there?

"I had to keep an eye on you. The odds didn't look very promising for you, and I had to be there to do my job. You fell through the ice, Dean. You couldn't pull yourself out, and you didn't make it. You're dead." With that, Dean bolted upright, not understanding what was going on.

"What the fuck are you t-talking about? I'm a-alive! I'm s-sitting h-here talking to y-you! I can't be d-dead!" the man rolled his eyes and laid a single finger on Dean's forehead. Dean felt the biting cold leave his body, and his teeth stopped chattering. "Trust me, Dean, you are dead. There's your body," the man pointed to a lifeless heap nearby. Dean's jaw dropped. "I pulled it out of the water after I was sure there was no hope for you." The man's voice was calm, too calm to be telling Dean there was no hope for his survival.

"Who are you? Why didn't you try to help me? I called out to you; I held my arm out for you. Why didn't you even try?!" Dean was furious now, and he was getting to his feet. He couldn't be dead. He had Sam and his parents waiting for him at home. He couldn't be dead. It just wasn't possible. "My name is Castiel, but you would know me by another name. I didn't try to help you because that's not my job. I'm Death, Dean. My job is to make sure everyone ends up where they belong in the big scope of things. Usually I would have sent a reaper to take you where you're supposed to go, but I prefer to escort the young ones myself. They need a kind of reassurance that most of my reapers cannot provide. We should be going now. I've told you much more than you need to know already." He stood up in one fluid motion, and held out a hand for Dean. Dean smacked it away and gathered his own footing.

"Why wouldn't you even try to help me?" he asked through gritted teeth. "You could see I was an inch from death, so why didn't you try to save me?" Castiel sighed heavily. The incessant questions had always been his least favorite part of the process. "We are not always given a helping hand or a saving grace in life, Dean. Why should death be any different?"

Dean furrowed his brow, trying to make sense of what he was being told. He stumbled over to his body. He stood over it, and Castiel followed closely behind him. "You need to put me back in my body, now. My family is going to be home soon, so cut the crap and leave me the fuck alone." Dean was as serious as a heart attack, but Castiel chuckled a bit at his demand. "I'm afraid it doesn't work like that, Dean. I can't reanimate the dead. My name is Death for a reason.

"You aren't going home, Dean. You're going to Heaven." Castiel tried to sound hopeful, but his tone remained flat and uncaring. Dean shook his head violently. "No. No, I can't be dead, okay? I have a family! I have a little brother I have to take care of. I can't do this to them. Think about what this is going to do to him! I'm seventeen fucking years old, Castiel, I can't be dead! I have my whole life ahead of me. There's gotta be a way out of this." Dean began pacing in the snow, fighting back tears that threatened to spill over his eyes.

"I'm sorry this happened to you, Dean, but there isn't a way out of this. You're dead, and you're going to stay that way. And you're going to Heaven, where you'll be happy for an eternity. I don't understand why you're fighting this." Castiel tried to rationalize, but Dean cut him off with a snarl.

"I'm fighting this because I have a mom and a dad and a brother that are never going to be the same if I die! It's two days before Christmas, Castiel. I can't be happy forever if I know that Sammy will never enjoy Christmas again!" Dean lost his battle with the tears, and they flowed steadily down his face, stinging his cheeks with the cold. "Please, Castiel, there has to be something you can do. For my family, please." Dean moved to face Castiel, and he placed his hand on Death's shoulder.

Castiel sighed, and his gaze shifted downward. He didn't want to look the crying teenager in the eye. He knew sparing this boy's life would be disastrous to his own, but for some reason, this boy stood out. He had done this countless times. He had taken 8 year old cancer patients from their single fathers before. In his early days, he had taken elderly women from their husbands of sixty years, and fathers from their loving wives and soccer playing children. He had always told himself it was okay to take these people, because they were going to Heaven. They were going to happy forever, and they would never worry or fear ever again. They were going to a place he could never go, and that comforted him, but he for some reason he couldn't bear the idea of taking this seventeen year old boy from his parents, or his little brother.

Castiel sighed heavily, and slowly came to face Dean. "Okay. I might be able to do something." He felt Dean's grip tighten on his shoulder, and he felt himself being pulled towards the boy. Dean wrapped both of his arms around Castiel's shoulders in a tight embrace. "Thank you, Castiel." Was all he could manage to say. Castiel looked at him remorsefully after he was released from Dean's firm grasp.

"This isn't going to be easy for me to do. You'll go back to living your life, but I'm going to be heavily reprimanded for doing this. There's a natural order to these things that demands to be respected, and I'm about to spit in its face by doing this." Castiel's voice was heavy, and Dean felt a sense of concern for the man who had just let him die.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked. Castiel shook his head. "Death is not something you can just outrun, Dean. There are always consequences to changing the sequence of life. By saving you, I'm altering the future, and no one will ever know how far it will be altered. I could be directly contributing to the destruction of the human race, or I could be paving the way for the next great human discovery. But regardless, I'm going to have to answer for this. And so will you, Dean. Nature has a kind of give and take policy to it, and I'm not sure how that is going to apply to this. I'm going to have to keep a close watch on you from now on. But, I suppose we can worry about all of that at a later time. Goodbye, Dean, for now."

Before Dean could protest, Castiel leaned down and touched the chest of Dean's lifeless body. Dean felt a sharp stab of pain, and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, he was no longer standing next to Death in the snow, but in the comfort of his living room, alone. He whipped his head around, searching for some sign of Castiel. Not a minute later, his parents walked through the front door. His mother had a drink or two, and his father had his arm draped over her shoulders. Fourteen year old Sam followed behind them, looking more than exasperated.

"Honey, are you okay?" Mary Winchester stopped in her tracks when she saw him, knowing something was wrong. "Why are you soaking wet? Did you go outside in this weather?" Dean stared at her anxious face for a moment before falling forward into her arms. He hugged her tightly, rocking back and forth a bit, rejoicing in the fact that he was alive to embrace her. "I'm fine, Mom. I fell into the lake out in the woods, but I pulled myself out quickly. I'm fine." He lied, because none of them would believe him, and that was just fine with him.

He then hugged his father, who wasn't expecting the sentiment at all. Then he pulled Sammy into a tight embrace, but the younger brother tried desperately to wriggle free from his older brother's grip. "Dean, stop it, no chick flick moments!" Dean settled for just ruffling Sam's hair, because he was just glad that he could. His parents yelled at him about being more responsible and not making stupid decisions, and Dean didn't care, because they still had two rebellious kids to yell at. And then his mom became very concerned and overprotective, and Dean didn't wipe his cheek after she kissed it, because she still had two sons to kiss and make better.

Dean went to bed happy that night, because he was alive, and his family wasn't going to know the pain of losing a child. Before drifting off into sleep, Dean silently thanked Castiel for what he had done, and he dreamed of the life he had ahead of him.


End file.
